WHAT PRICE HONESTY

                                    WHAT PRICE HONESTY???

Well, we are over and done with the pomp, pageantry,ceremonies synonymous with the Republic Day Parade and last but not the least, the undertones of superficiality and arrogance that has come to be associated with our so called "Aam Aadmi" friendly sarkar.
One wonders whether the military might,pomp,new found bonhomie and spirit of superciliousness which was on blatant display this morning was the harbinger or portrait of India or the dastardly and ghastly attacks that were perpetrated against three civil servants who dared to discharge their assigned duties in a manner deigned to be true to the latter and spirit of their respective codes of conduct over the last two days were the mirror image of India in the 21st century?
The Additional District Collector of Nasik(Maharashtra)paid the ultimate price and made the supreme sacrifice while discharging his laid down duties.His only crime being the fact that he had the moral fibre to question the shenanigans of the ruling 'Oil Mafia'within the state and put paid to their nefarious activities solely initiated with the express purpose of looting the exchequer to the tune of crores of rupees with the active collusion of the ruling party within the state.
Yeshwant Sonawane was burnt alive by a band of nine goons identified by his driver, he was accosted by three of them,beaten up, publicly humiliated, doused with a 20 litre jerrycan of kerosene and then set alight as he had committed the heinous crime of filming them in the act of pilfering petrol with kerosene.
Two other civil servants were respectively attacked by the goons of the cement mafia and errant electricity bill paying citizens for commiting the sacrilege of collecting the dues payable to their respective departments.One has not yet forgotten the supreme sacrifice made by Manjunath and other whistle blowers like Amit Jethwa while exposing the sins of omissiona and commission of the high and mighty.
yours truly would like to ask whether honesty has become a crime today? is being honest a boon or a dastardly sin? why are brave sons od this glorious motherland paying with their life whenever they summon up the courage to question the wrongdoings of a callous few who have abrogated unto themselves the right to supercede all laid down laws,systems and judicial practices and precedents.
Are we living in a democracy which swears by the supremacy of the laid down laws in our constitution or then in a banana republic where the rights of a few are seen to be the rights of the silent majority as they wield the reins thanks to the might of their money,muscle and political power.The new found bonhomie between the various mafias and political dispensation while not exactly an overnight phenomenon is even more disturbing as the display of the same was not so blatant and disgraceful as it has come to be today.
This rather sorry state of affairs has carried on for too long and the country is crying out for a revolution that will set things right and usher in the rule of law within our motherland once again. Please join me in being the harbingers of change and initiating sincere,time bound and relevant efforts in the direction of a new and brighter future for our progeny.
SUNDEEP CHOPRA.

WHITHER NATIONALISM

                                    WHITHER NATIONALISM

Friends,fellows and my dear countrymen, our glorious country finds itself at the crossroads on the eve of it's 62nd Republic Day as the events that unfolded earlier today on the Kashmir-Punjab proved.
The reprehensible events of this afternoon have once again given rise to the highly relevant question of whether a handful of seccesionists and separatists can hold a country of the magnitude to ransom, where were  the reactionary tactics, new found love for law and order and fear of a bloodbath when the Yasin Malik's and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's of this world unfurled the Pakistani and Chinese flags on more than one occasion at the highly combustible Lal Chowk, why didn't Omar Abdullah and the home minister display the same alacrity and alertness at that time?
This rather sorry state of affairs is a direct fallback to the policy of appeasement being practiced by this Congress lead UPA government and every other Congress government that preceded it, the Congress has always believed or rather conformed to the sectarian idiom of equating minorityism with secularism, while any two bit rationalist worth his salt would be well versed with the fact that the two idioms are as different from each other as chalk is from cheese and the two cannot even co-exist with each other in mutual harmony.
The country finds itself being broken upto into smaller parts and principalities as the present day regime believes in bending over backwards and letting matters come to a head before reacting and nipping all separatist and nocturnal tendencies aimed at dividing and subdividing this glorious country of ours for their narrow sectarian needs and insatiable lust for enjoying the spoils of power any which way they can.
Friends our leadership has woefully failed in discharging the onerous task of keeping this country together and it is high time that we the common citizens of this country took up the cudgels of putting paid to the nefarious thoughts and deeds of the Yasin Malik's, K.Chandrashekhar Rao's, Raj Thackeray'a and all other so called leaders of the same flock let's all stand together on this Republic Day and send out an unequivocal message saying that this country will remain united come what may.
Please join me in redeeming our pledge towards our loyalty to our motherland first and strengthen my hands by posting your invaluable messages of support on my blog, JAI HIND and thank you for your unstinted support.    

SUNDEEP CHOPRA

INDIAN WOES

The Indian team did register it's third win of the ongoing World Cup 2011 at Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla stadium against minnows the Netherlands, but what must be worrying the legions of Indian cricket fans is the pronounced inability of the frontline spinners to come good and capture wickets by the bushelful even against the so called weaker opposition and the marked tendency of the batsmen to tie themselves up in knots and contrive newer and more unique modes of dismissal.
Dhoni and his band of merry warriors ended up losing five wickets against the fighting Irish while chasing down a modest total of 208 and they did a Houdini again against the Orange Brigade from the Netherlands and were reduced to 99/4 and 130/5 at various stages of their run chase, now this is not what one expects from prospective world champions who ideally should not have lost more than two wickets or at best three in a 190 run chase and the runs required should have been notched up by the end of the thirtieth over.
It again took a mature knock by the pied piper of Punjab Yuvraj Singh to save team India the blushes and guide them home, Yuvraj's measured knock of 51* of 73 balls studded with 7 exquisite boundaries is incidentally his second fifty plus score on the trot and also his second man of the match award in succession. While Yuvraj's much awaited return to form does augur well for the team in it's battles ahead against much tougher opposition, the repeated failures of the top four batsmen to come good must indeed be causing the team management a sleepless night or two. Messrs Sehwag, Tendulkar and Kohli have struggled to repeat the heroics of their hundred plus knocks registered against the Bangladeshis and Englishmen respectively and the trio have failed to notch up even a single score of 35 or more after their afore mentioned sterling exploits.
Their repeated failures must indeed be a cause for concern as the the top four batsmen more often than not are expected to contribute more than 50% of the team's ultimate total in a fifty over game.Gautam Gambhir has been contriving newer and more innovative ways of getting himself out and his new found penchant of getting bowled round his legs with a helpful nudge from his protruding thigh pad must certainly have come to the notice of opposing captain's and bowlers by now and they surely must be devising newer and more innovative ways of exploiting this nocturnal tendency to their advantage in time to come.
Harbhajan's failure to turn the ball in spinner friendly conditions must indeed be a huge cause of worry to the Indian team management as Harbhajan was widely expected to don the mantle of the spin bowling spearhead in the spinner friendly conditions prevailing in the subcontinent but his wicket taking form seems to have deserted him all of a sudden and his meagre returns two wickets from four matches are definitely not commensurate with a bowler of his abilities, Harbhajan seems to be caught between two stools or so it seems when viewed from the outside he seems to be in a conundrum as to whether he should flight the ball and tease and tantalise the opposing batsmen before luring them to their doom or then bowl a tight restrictive line denying the batsmen from the other side the much sought scoring opportunities.
Cricketing experts have been unanimous in their opinion that while Harbhajan has not been bowling badly his inability to impart sidespin on the ball instead of the considerable amount of overspin being imparted by him as of now is reducing the revolutions of the ball in the air and spin of the pitch, Harbhajan needs to go back to his old ways of flighting the ball varying his trajectory and speeds in order to regain both his lost form and wicket taking abilities according to former spinning legends and one can only hope and pray that the doughty Sardar does pay heed to the invaluable advice rendered by erstwhile spinning legends and starts picking up two wickets or more in the remaining matches.
The less said about Piyush Chawla and the Indian team's profligacy on the field the better, here is a bowler who was picked up by the five wise men(?) namely the Indian selectors on a whim and a fancy after languishing in the wilderness for the best part of two years or more and while his terling deeds on the pitch in the practice match gainst the mighty Aussies did seem to vindicate the selectors decision, his subsequent forays on the field must surely have left the selectors falbbergasted and ducking for cover, his meagre return of 2/47 against a team of minnows who are supposed to be clueless against the ball turning away from them does certainly not inspire confidence in the hearts and minds of the Indian supporters.
Dhoni's implausible explanation of including Chawla in the side to give him confidence seems laughable to say the very least as Chawla's exploits must only be serving to dent his confidence rather than reinforcing it and Ashwin';s ouster from the side despite his noteworthy exploits in the limited opportunities accorded to him certainly seems to be stretching the limits of credibility a little too far. India needs to be utterly ruthless in both matters of selection and exploits on the field if it wants to harbour any hopes whatsoever of winning the cup after a lengthy twenty eight year interval.
WIll Messrs Dhoni and company diplay the much needed ruthlessness on the field against the proteas come Saturday or then continue with their profligate ways and nocturnal tendencies, let's all wait and watch.
SUNDEEP CHOPRA.           

Dr Abdul Kalam's letter to Every Indian

DEAR MAHI

Dear Mahender Singh Dhoni,
                                            Congratulations on the second victory registered by your doughty warriors against the fighting Irish during the course of the World Cup 2011 at Bengaluru's M.Chinnaswamy stadium, while any victory is worth its weight in gold and always serves as a booster dose for the team it is the post mortems and critical analysis in its wake that causes many a team untold grief and consternation.
The performance of both you as well as your fellow team members has been inconsistent to say the very least, there have been sporadic moments of brilliance that have taken one's breath away and left one gasping at the audacity of the men on the field, but these have been few and in far between. The team has vacillated from the sublime to the ridiculous for at least 38 out of the the 50 overs allotted to it, Harbhajan has been obsessed with containing the batsmen rather than trying to bowl them out and the same is duly reflected in the returns in terms of wickets.
Zaheer was brilliant in the power play overs bowled by him against the Englishmen and in the first over that he bowled to the Irish openers where he cleaned up one of them with a brilliant inswinger, but to be brutally honest, a bowler of Zaheer's pace requires the assistance of either the elements,pitch or atmospheric conditions as the case may be to be at his most potent and is rendered toothless in the absence of any assistance,Munaf Patel again is a bowler who bowls at 132-135 kmph at his best and is more of a restrictive rather than wicket taking bowler who looks to bowl within the stumps and curtail the shot making of the batsmen rather than trying to dismiss them with subtle variations of pace,swing and trajectory.
The fourth bowler in the side Piyush Chawla has been an absolute disaster to say the very least and was taken to the cleaners by both the English as well as Irish batsmen, strangley here is a leg spinner who struggles to turn the ball square and is more adept at bowling googlies rather than the flipper top spinner and leg spinner that every leg spinner worth his salt relies on, the exclusion of by far the better leggie Amit Mishra continues to baffle every right thinking cricket analyst and the reluctance displayed by the team management as regards Ravichandran Ashwin's inclusion in the playing eleven has led to considerable heartburn and exasperation to say the very least.
It is high time you took a leaf out of Graeme Smith's book and tried out the option of opening the bowling with a spinner a la Robin Peterson, either Yuvraj Singh or Yusuf Pathan's services can be requisitioned for this endeavour considering Bhajji's reluctance to either bowl with the new ball or the first fifteen power play overs,Yuvraj would be the better choice simply because of the fact that his confidence must be sky high at the present moment after his sterling efforts with both bat and ball against the fighting Irish.
Fielding continues to be the team's achilles heel as predicted by all and sundry before the first ball of the tournament was delivered, the antics and exploits of the Zaheer Khan's,Munaf Patel's,Harbhajan Singh's and Piyush Chawla's on the field have been the unwitting cause of many a moment of mirth and unintentional comedy and the primary cause behind the team's magnanimity with regard to gifting the opposing team an additional ten-twelve runs with their sheer laziness and ineptitude, this world cup is going to go right to the wire and the best fielding side might well end up annexing the game considering the bowler unfriendly conditions and this is where India's profligacy might end up costing it a game or two when push comes to shove during the knockout stages of the tournament.
Your nocturnal tendency to persist with seven batsmen when even six seem one too many has indeed left yours truly scratching his hair while trying to fathom the cricketing logic or reasons for the same,the number seven slot may well be occupied by Ravichandran Ashwin who is a more than capable batsman in his own right and with the doughty sardar following him at the number eight position, the team is  certainly bound to be better than all right in the absence of a bowling all rounder at the crucial number seven position, one feels that you would be best served by instilling the much required confidence in his own abilities within Irfan Pathan and stilling the demons who have begun plaguing his mind as he was the only kid on the block who has the potential of proving an adequate replacement for the great Kapil Dev.
Six batsmen and five bowlers' is the formula that will win you the cup and not the seven batsmen and four bowlers you continue to persist with as the duo or triumvirate of bits and pieces players who combine to make up the fifth bowler will be taken to the cleaners more often than not by the marauding batsmen within the opposition, anyway, here's wishing you and your men the very best of luck for the remainder of the tournament,may you succeed in fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of millions of your countrymen by bringing the cup that unites home after a long and arduous twenty eight year long wait.
SUNDEEP CHOPRA.    

BILLY DON'T BE SILLY

Dear Mr. Billy Bowden,
                                    One has always had the greatest regard for you and accorded the respect due to you on account of your being one of the finest umpires in the world. Your antics have been imitated nay even become part and parcel of many a cricket fans bag of tricks, but, your actions and bull headedness during the India-England group A World Cup 2011 encounter at Bengaluru's M.Chinnaswamy stadium did certainly end up raising more than an eyebrow or two and also did raise questions about your abilities and judgement as an umpire.
You were certainly guilty of committing atleast two if not more bloopers during the game in question, firstly you did not rule Andrew Strauss out caught behind off the bowling of Munaf Patel when he literally hit the cover of the ball with his individual score on 21 at the time, one must grant you the fact that Messrs Dhoni and company certainly did not bring the roof of the stadium down with vociferous appeals and theatrical  antics and the only visible reaction from both Dhoni and Munaf Patel was a muted cry of anguish at what might have been.
Dhoni and Munaf might have failed to hear the snick or nick as it is called in different cricketing nations, but you had recourse to the stump microphone and must have certainly heard the same on it, the deviation of the ball from it's original trajectory after passing the bat should also have been a dead give away and prompted you to lift your crooked finger in affirmation of the snick, you might well argue that the Indian players did not vociferously appeal for the same, but one does certainly recall an appeal being made by Virender Sehwag who was stationed at the mid wicket position at the time and the cries of anguish of both the keeper and bowler.
So much for your first blooper,your second blooper of not ruling Ian Bell out leg before the wicket to a Yuvraj Singh delivery that pitched in line with the off stump and straightened to hit the middle of the middle stump with the batsman's individual score reading 25 for the flimsy reason that the point of impact was beyond 2.5 metres from the stumps and that the ICC rules clearly specify the fact that any decision made beyond a distance of 2.5 metres from the stumps lie purely in the domain of the on field umpires.
Billy you should have first and foremost taken cognisance of the fact thay you were officiating a game on an Indian pitch and not one on an Australian or South African one where the ball would have most comfortably have bounced well over the height of the stumps more often than not. Secondly one wonders why you did not take into account the significant fact that the ball pitched in line with the stumps and there was little or no deviation from its original patch after pitching.
While sticking to the letter of the law is indeed an admirable quality, any eminent jurist worth his/her salt will tell you that it is the interpretation of the spirit of the law that marks the difference between a run of the mill and eminent jurist and the same holds good for umpires as well, you should have been the first one to take cognisance of the fact that there is no scope whatsoever for personale prejudices and idiosyncracies in this era of instant replays,mats,hawkeyes,snicko megters and so and so forth where every error or mistake made by the umpires is magnified to the extent that it becomes the hot debating subject for the next week or two.
This is not to say that your umpiring bloopers ended up costing the Indian team the match, but the mind boggles to what if, England would have certainly struggled to chase down the mammoth Indian total if both or even one of the above mentioned two decisions would have gone in favour of the Indians and ended up with two point in their kitty rather than the one that swelled their kitty at the end of the match.
One can only hope and pray that you will henceforth base your decisions on the prevalent playing conditions and due diligence rather than an archaic law that was drafted by so called men of infinite wisdom without failing to take different playing conditions in different parts of the world into consideration and last but not the least, BILLY DO STOP BEING SILLY.
SUNDEEP CHOPRA.            

DEAR RAVI SHASTRI.

Dear Mr. Ravi Shastri,
                                 ,The last ball tie against the English lions in an epochal clash at Bengaluru's M.Chinnaswamy Stadium has once again highlighted the Indian teams perennial bowling and related problems and raised serious doubts in the minds of many fawning fan regarding their teams overwhelming favourites status and more importantly begun raising questions about the Indian bowlers ability to adequately defend three hundred plus scores on a regular basis.
As chairman/chief patron of the Bengaluru based National Cricket Academy, you must be well aware of this age old problem which began plaguing the Indian team ever since bowlers of the incomparable quality of Kapil Dev, Roger Binny, Manoj Prabhakar, Javagal Srinath and last but not the least Anil Kumble hung up their boots for good thereby creating a void that yet remains to be filled and one can only wonder why you and the powers that be in the Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI) have not yet taken cognisance of this alarming issue and initiated the requisite remedial measures.
The average cricket fan and follower has still not been able to understand the rationale behind the rather abrupt decision to dispense with Messrs Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh as the Indian bowling and fielding coaches when they were doing a middling to good job in their respective roles. The decision to appoint South African Eric Simons as the Indian bowling coach out of the blue did certainly raise more than a few eyebrows and the sultan of pace and swing Wasim Akrams' reaction to Eric Simons appointment says it all, "Kaun Hai yeh banda Eric Simons, maine naa iske baare main suna hain aur naa isko South Africa ke liye khelta dekha hain."
Would both you and the powers that be within the BCCI echelons condescend to explain the thought/thinking  that went into this decision of appointing an obscure and largely unknown South African as the Indian bowling coach, why were the claims or pedigree of two noteworthy Indian bowling coaches namely Paras Mhambrey and Subroto Banerjee conveniently overlooked. While paras Mhambrey is the only other Indian bowling coach apart from Venkatesh Prasad to have successfully completed level two of the three internationally recognised coaching levels, Subroto Banerjee has now been succesfully associated with the Australian pace bowling academy in Adelaide for the last decade or so.
The Indian pace and spin bowling cupboard indeed looks bare with Jaydev Unadkat, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha being the only notables on the horizon and this certainly does not augur well for future Indian teams as both Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra seem to be on their last legs or at the fag end of their international careers and one cannot see them continuing beyond the next two-three years. Anil Kumble's retirement did certainly come as a body blow to Indian cricket and forced the doughty sardar Harbhajan Singh to don the mantle of India's spin bowling spearhead, a role that he has been struggling to come to terms with and while Messrs Kumble and Harbhajan used to hunt their victims as a pair, Harbhajan has certainly suffered in the absence of a reliable spin twin as the present incumbents Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra have only shown sporadically and are yet to show any remarkable measure of consistency at the highest level.
Irfan Pathan and Rudra Pratap Singh did sparkle on the horizon for an all too brief period and seem to have fallen by the wayside as far as posing claims for selection to the national side go, Munaf Patel has always been plagued by injury and fitness related concerns and Shantakumaran Sreesanth has been a liitle too inconsistent,profligate and sporadic in his efforts towards reposing the required confidence in the minds of the national selectors and legions of cricket fans. One can only begin to wonder why the services of Messrs Maninder Singh, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Narendra Hirwani have not been engaged as spinning coaches and why the Board in it's infinite wisdom has failed to recognise the crying need for the establishment of a spin academy at Chennai's Chepauk stadium with Anil Kumble as it's chairperson and the above mentioned three gentlemen as it's full time coaches.
A fast bowlers/pace bowlers academy could be established at Mohali's Punjab Cricket Association Stadium with the irrepresible Jat Kapil Dev as it's chairperson and Messrs Venkatesh Prasad, Paras Mhambrey and Subroto Banerjee as full time coaches their efforts could be supplemented with the appointment of a full time fitness trainer, physiotherapist and last but not the least nutritionist/dietician. Fast bowlers of the pedigree of Glenn Mcgrath, Allan Donald, Curtley Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram could be approached and sounded out regarding their availability and willingness to conduct pace bowling clinics at timely intervals.
Fielding related issues need to be addressed at the under 15 and under 19 levels and India's greatest fielders in recent history namely Messrs Robin and Yajurvindra Singh should be entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring their wards battle readiness to shine on the field at the highest level as and when they get their opportunity, the fifteen-twenty runs saved on the field make the difference between winning and losing more often than not in today's cricket and it is high time that the BCCI recognised this problem for what it was and initiated the required measures towards surmounting it. The proposed fielding academy could be set up as an arm of the National Cricket Academy.
Mr. Shastri kindly take cognisance of the humbly offered suggestions, pay heed to them, remodel and revitalise them as and how required but do act upon them as time is indeed running out for team India.
Sundeep Chopra.